Live Auction 11005The Italian Sale
Michelangelo Pistoletto (b. 1933)
Lot 161

Michelangelo Pistoletto (b. 1933)

I tre occhi (The Three Eyes)

Closed16 October 2015

Estimate

GBP 150,000–250,000

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Michelangelo Pistoletto (b. 1933)
I tre occhi (The Three Eyes)
signed, titled twice, inscribed and dated ‘I TRE OCCHI – opera riprodotta nel manifesto per la mostra a Palazzo Grassi Venezia 1976 Pistoletto estate 1976 – i tre occhi –‘ (on the reverse)
two transparencies mounted on board in lightbox
15 7/8 x 12 x 4 1/8in. (40.5 x 30.5 x 10.5cm.)
Executed in 1976

The source image of the present work was photographed by Paolo Mussat Sartor

Katia Arte Contemporanea, Genoa.
Galleria De Ambrogi, Milan.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Specialist note

‘Man has always attempted to double himself as a means of attaining self-knowledge. The recognition of one’s own image in a pool of water - like recognizing oneself in a mirror - was perhaps one of the first real hallucinations that man experienced. Part of man’s mind has always remained attached to that reproduction of himself. With the passage of time, this doubling, this process of duplication, came to be used in ways that were ever more systematic and convincing. The mind created representation on the basis of the reflection of the self; and art has become one form of this representation’ (M. Pistoletto, Le ultime parole famose, Turin 1967).